Teleuse@BOP4 :The 2011 study was conducted in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and most recently, Java (Indonesia), focuses on if and how mobile phones are being used for productive purposes, especially within the agriculture sector.
The study also contains a module on the knowledge and information needs as well as ICT use in the agriculture sector in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Telephone use was perceived to provide a much higher benefit in providing a sense of security in terms of acting in an emergency and in maintaining social relationships than benefiting financially though the potential for greater income earning ability and saving costs at the BOP and this seems to be continuing trend even in 2011. The studies have consistently shown the phone being used primarily for social purposes, with more “utilitarian” uses (such as use for business, financial or work-related) being secondary. The most recent findings show however that there is a segment of the BOP which uses the phone for utilitarian purposes on a daily basis.

From 2008 the studies also tried to assess the awareness and use of “more-than-voice” applications and services, such as m-payments, m-health, m-gov applications and information (livelihood-related, entertainment, etc) services. More awareness of more-than-voices services was expected since they offer a way for the BOP to access information and services with lower transaction costs. Awareness was relatively higher in entertainment-related information services than in other categories. The most recent data showed no significant change in overall awareness between 2008 and 2011, and very low (almost zero) usage figures whilst use of more-than-voices services seems to have declined from 2008.

The biggest barrier to more-than-voice usage, among those who are already aware of such applications and services appears to be a lack of know-how on how to use the services, as well as the perception that such services and applications are not relevant to them. This suggests that awareness is still only at a surface level, and detailed knowledge of the services and applications does not exist yet.